Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1887-05-28
TRADE WITH CANADA.
THE HON. BENZ. BUTTERwORTH'S
PLEA FOR RECIPROCITY.

A Notable Speech Delivered to the Cana
dian Club of New York City-Complete
Free Trade With Canada Strongly Advo-
Gated from a Protectionist Standpoint.
The Canadian Club, recently organized in
New York, mainly through the efforts OF
Mr.. Erastus Wiman, held notable meeting
May 10. The audience gathered in Associa-
ton Hall, in addition to several hundred
members of the club, included promi-
nent members of the Chamber of Commerce,
Board of Trade and Transportation, Stock
and Produce Exchanges. Mr.. Wiman pre-
sided. The speech of the evening was de-
livered by Congressman Benjamin Butter
worth, of Ohio, in favor of a reciprocity
treaty between the United States and Canada.
Mr.. Butterworth, although thoroughgoing
protectionist, is an ardent advocate of free
trade with Canada, which he regards as be-
ing as fully in accord with protectionist prin-
ciples as free trade between the States Of the
Union. He introduced bill to that end in
the Forty-ninth Congress and has given an
amount of study to the subject which ena-
bled him to make his speech an interesting
repository of facts and figures on the subject.
He began his speech with an avowal of his
protectionist creed. The protective system
has for its object to do away with the inc
qualities which obtain between competitors
in the several industries in this country and
those of the old world engaged in the same
field of employment. The farmer found his
compensation in the building up of our in
dustries. Under the influence of protection
great cities and towns centres of large in
dustrial population, grew up and provided
a market for the product of the farms. So
that what the farmer lost in the increased
price of the articles he purchased he more
than made up by the increased amount he
received for the supplies he was enabled to
sell to those employed in the industries
which owed their existence to the protective
system. The protective tariff should and
does ostensibly deal with unequal conditions
in the field of competition, its mission being
to equalize them. 1t follows logically, and
as a common-sense proposition, that when
the conditions are equal so-called protection
is disguised robbery, legalized filching from
one citizen to enrich another.
REMOVING THE BARRIER.
As regards the relations between Canada
and the United States, Mr.. Butterworth con-
tended that they should be characterized by
free trade. He said:
"What is proposed is full and complete re-
ciprocal trade and commerce between the
United States and Canada, by the terms
of which for all purposes of trade, barter and
exchange the two countries shall be as one,
the arrangement having nothing to do with
governmental matters or political conditions,
there being no necessary connection or rela-
hatu ho of
a country and its trade and commerce.
We seek by this arrangement to remove
all the custom-houses along our Cana
dian frontier, to withdraw the line
of pickets that keep watch and ward on both
sides along 5000 miles of our Northern
farmer does not sell his neighbor across the
line some early potatoes or early corn without
going to the custom-house, paying large
part of the value of the p reduce for the priv
ilege, and compelling the Canadian to sub
NIT to the same extortion before he can sell
to his friend who supplied him with the early
corn and potatoes later variety of the same
articles, that we-as the inhabitants of what
is for all purposes oftrade common country,
being in race, religion, ancestry and tradition
one people, differing only in our political in
stitutions-shall throw down the barriers that
now block every highway of business pros
perity and progress, and open all the course
Mexico and the northern boundary of the
Dominion of Canada-that the farmers,
manufacturers and merchants shall seek our
markets unhampered and unrestricted in
every part of this vast field of DEVELOPMENT,
and thereby settle at once and in manner
worthy of our race and civilization the
petty squabbles, now more than century
old, about the fisheries. He who appeals to
the protective system as between competitors
in Canada and the United States asks
monopoly, not equality. He seeks an unjust
advantage, not an equal opportunity. As
Canadians may invoke the protective sys-
tenn j; but as between Canadians and Ameri-
cans it has no proper place, unless to author
lie extortion in the interest of the monopo-
lists is the proper mission of legislative effort"
Mr.. Butterworth reviewed the history of
the relations between the two countries,
giving incidentally sketch of the fishery
dispute which, relating solely to the priv
leges of a few thousand fishermen engaged
in a single avocation, draws into the vortex
of controversy all other interests pertaining
to the trade and commerce of the two nations.
He instanced the opinions of statesmen of
the past in favor of reciprocity as the true
basis of settlement. He said:
MOVEMENTS TOWARD RECIPROCITY.
"Such favor did the idea of reciprocity
of trade find that in 1S48 the House of
Representatives passed a bill which had
for its object the establishment of that re-
lation. John Quincy Adams was a mem
Der of that House. Robert G. Winthrop and
Abraham Lincoln were also members Of that
House. The attitude of the Wing party to-
ward reciprocity may be inferred from the
fact that they had majority of ten in the
Houes which passed the bill / have men-
toned. The Senate was Democratic. The
bill failed to become law only because there
was not time before adjournment for its con-
sideration by the Senate. VIM. H. Seward
was then senator from New York. Daniel
Webster was Secretary of State Willard Fill
more was President. 1t had come to be rec
ognized that the only possible settlement of
the controversy in regard to the fisheries
which could be just and lasting and which
would tend to promote the prosperity of the
two parties whose interests were Immediately
and most affected, was the removal of the
hampering restrictions upon commerce and
the enlargement of the trade relations be-
tween the United States and Canada.
"Mr. Seward, in closing his speech on the
subject of the fisheries, said:
"'What the colonies require is some modi-
fication of commercial relations which may
affect the revenue That is subject proper
to be acted upon by Congress. Let us no
longer excite ourselves and agitate the coun-
try with unavailing debates, but let us ad-
dress ourselves to the relief of the fishermen
and the improvement of our commerce
There is only one way that Congress can act,
and that is by reciprocal legislation with the
British Parliament or the British colonies"
1.-THE wisdom of those who adopted that
view has been attested by time and expert
apca Partial raciprocitv cama in 1874 -opd